ONCE UPON A TIME

Paddington is one of a kind and its history is as rich as it is colourful. Once possessing silent streams, rocky groves and walking tracks for Sydney’s ancient Indigenous peoples, Paddington began its colonial life in the first half of the 19th century with Australia’s first legal distillery: producing rum and gin. By the 1850’s a small village had emerged adorned charming sandstone cottages, windmills and simple churches.

Fast forward only a few decades to the 1890’s and the Paddington Council possessed more houses than any other in Australia. A labyrinth of laneways, streets and squares had been forged from its rocky slopes to create a bustling suburb that was uniquely grand and Victorian to the core.

Row upon row of elegant terrace houses, each decorated with distinct iron laced balconies and pediments lined every avenue, while on almost every street corner there could be heard the hearty merriment of local pubs. Steam powered trams rattled past the finely groomed horses of handsome cabs. Industrious quarrymen, carpenters, bricklayers and stonemasons could be found busying themselves on every block as a seemingly infinite supply of residential construction continued to squeeze in stylish houses for an ever growing population.

…and then the crash. How dramatically things would change by the turn of the 20th century as the Federation Drought Depression brought wealthy inner city suburbs like Paddington to a standstill and resulted in the sudden exodus of the well-to-do residents that had installed their their mantle-pieces with marble and fitted their staircases with cedar.

By 1920 a Sydney health inspector would report that Paddington’s streets were the “worst place to live I have ever seen” and that poverty stricken tenants who inhabited these “disgusting slums” should “shoot their landlord” as they would “be better off in gaol than in these places”.

Luckily, and not without a fight, the very houses, pubs and avenues that once fell from grace during the dark days of Paddington’s past have been beautifully repaired and restored to their former glory — allowing our historical journey through this extraordinarily suburb to reflect and reminisce on all they’ve seen.

TOUR DETAILS

WHAT:

• Most Sundays at 11:00 am
• 2.5 hr walking tour
• Small group walking tour, max. 14 people
• Led by a Sydney Crime Historian

PRICE:

• $55 per person
• Private tours available on request

MEETING POINT:

• We start at Edgecliff Station, in front of the newsagent that faces the train ticket vending machine / ticket gates. 
• We finish the tour by the Royal Hotel at Five Ways, for the opportunity for a post tour drink or pub dinner.